Tag: blockchain technology applications

How is Blockchain Transforming Business Models?

Posted on January 25, 2018

Kevin Bell

Blockchain technology has penetrated deep into a number of industries in recent years, particularly the banking and financial sectors. Enhanced security, accountability and transparency being the core benefits of blockchain technology, it is fast replacing the traditional business models. Well, business firms are still experimenting with blockchain, and the first phase of its implementation has yielded impressive results.

According to a Forbes, around 90% of the European and North American banks are exploring the technology. Today, security and transparency are two of the key priorities of every organization. Adopting blockchain technology, the organizational mechanism in business firms receives a boost.

Well, you may perceive the situation as a disruption of the traditional setup in business, but in reality, blockchain has tremendous potential for a vast plethora of industries.

Let’s have a look at the changing structure of business models, with the emergence of the blockchain technology.

Higher speed of execution

In the digitized business infrastructure, speed of execution of the projects is one of the key factors that drive the business. Integrating blockchain technologies on the platforms result in higher speed of execution of the projects.

Smart contracts are used in mutual distributed ledgers, according to the rules in each business. Business firms are using computer protocols, that verify, facilitate and enforce the performance or negotiation of a contract.

Besides, business firms can customize this integration on the basis of each contract. They can streamline the transactions by eliminating the intermediaries and counterparties. Evidently, you can execute contracts and trades seamlessly in a fast-paced business environment, as technology replaces the middlemen. At the same time, business firms also benefit from the cost reductions.

Increased productivity

Increased productivity in business is one of the factors, leading to the large-scale integration of blockchain technology across the industries. The global blockchain market is fast developing. By 2024, the blockchain industry is likely to cross a valuation of $20 billion.

The internet has been successful in increasing the productivity of organizations and individuals more productive. However, the door for improving the transaction mechanism is still open in the 21st century. Blockchain has the potential to make this mechanism efficient and open, which is an essential operational trait in the internet era.

The technology can cut down delays in delivery, reduce costs, eliminate risks and improve the quality of products and services. As a result, industries are becoming more technically refined, and the marginal reduction of manual labour is evident in the global business setup.

Making the supply chain more efficient

Blockchain Technology can be used to refine the supply chain in business firms. For instance, company manufacturing aircraft might integrate blockchain technology to manage the relationship with its suppliers professionally. The suppliers, producing components and parts of the aircraft, are able to share the same data about new models of the aircraft. This is applicable in all the stages of the designing mechanism, right from planning, conceptualizing, assembling and delivering the parts. Blockchain technologies can also help them in maintaining the machines.

Peer-to-peer transactions across the globe

The evolution of Bitcoin is a perfect instance of the changing structure of peer-to-peer transactions around the globe. However, blockchain technologies have potentials beyond cryptocurrency. It can assist the secure, speedy and cheap fund transfer across the world.

Online payment mechanisms, such as PayPal are efficient in transferring funds internationally, but the transaction fees are high. Besides, certain limitations are also visible in the P2P payment services. These include specific caps on the transfer amounts and location restrictions.

Various analytic tools, statistics and other evaluation mechanisms have been adopted for forecasting the business environment over the years. Blockchain technologies are likely to change the overall mechanism of consulting, approach, forecasting and analysis.

Various online platforms are coming up with decentralized prediction systems for business firms. These technologies can be effective in placing and monitoring bets in a decentralized way, on any aspect, from sports to stocks. Evidently, the traditional forecasting mechanisms adopted by business firms are facing a stiff challenge from blockchain.

Blockchain Development can cut down the complexity and cost in the operational process of business to a large extent. Today, a large section of industries is following the open-source model in developing blockchain technologies in order to fully utilize the potentials. This technology has the potential to reduce the operational costs of banks by 30%.

When seamlessly implemented, the participants can concentrate on their individual efforts on certain platforms, hardware systems and applications in the industry, in order to support transactions. Blockchain technologies are likely to revolutionize the business models in the insurance sector, ride sharing and public transportation, charity, cloud storage, voting, energy management, real estate, networking and a vast plethora of other industries.

No wonder, an increasing number of industries are embracing blockchain technology.

5 Ways in Which Blockchain Technology is Revamping the Finance Sector

Posted on December 26, 2017

Kevin Bell

Blockchain has taken the word by storm owing to the transformations it has brought for the businesses across the multiple sectors especially for the Financial services. Every now and then, a fresh announcement makes its way in the banking sector about how it is adopting blockchain technology to transform the large amount of data that they possess.

The perfect combination of cryptography and the databases, the blockchain technology enables multiple parties to have access to a digital ledger simultaneously. Whilst the bankers were a bit skeptical regarding this technology in its initial days, today it stands to be one of the hottest buzzwords in the sector and is attracting millions of people.

In this article, we are going to shed some light on the top 5 ways by which the blockchain development is revolutionizing the finance sector.

Transparency in Insurance

Some of the challenging factors which lead to customer dissatisfaction in the insurance sector are manual processes, fraudulent claims, legacy underwriting models, etc. Creating policies with the help of the blockchain serves to be one of the best use case for insurance. This not only offers complete control, traceability and transparency for each claim but also leads to automatic pay-outs. It also improves risk modelling and reduces fraudulent claims to a significant level.

Simplification of the Asset Management

The traditional processes within the asset management are done manually and hence are slow and cumbersome at times. In addition to this, the process is also getting more complex owing to the non-standard investments and cross-border transactions. Since all the parties involved in the trade lifecycle like dealers, custodians, settlement teams, etc. keep a record of their own for the same transaction, a lot of error and inefficiencies can arise. Blockchain technology aims to signify this entire process by providing an automated cycle to all the parties involved in the transaction.

Automation of Supply Chain

One of the most exciting opportunities that the blockchain technology has brought with itself is the digital transformation of the supply chain. The existing supply chains are complex, slow, and the parties involved in this don’t trust each other. In such a scenario, blockchain comes up as a great solution to remove all these factors as they bank does not have to give the letters of credit, cust down the fees paid to the middlemen and also creates a network of trusted resources.

Adhering to the Compliance

The financial institutions present in the world need to comply and report the requirements of their local regulator. KYC is a local requirement and needs to be taken care of these institutions. However, this entire process is highly time consuming and due to the lack of automation leaves chances of errors. Blockchain solutions provide a single digital ID information and allows the exchange of information in a secured and a seamless manner. Thus, privacy of the entire data and efficient processing of the information is guaranteed.

Easy International Payments

The vertical of global payments is gigantic, costly, prone to errors, and cannot be traced at times, which leads to money laundering. this sector is truly in the need of some revamping and this is what blockchain is doing. Santander has become one of the first banks to apply blockchain to its payment app and has enabled the customers to make international payments 24/7.

What’s in Store for Us?

The financial sector has been trying to set up a shared digital environment for recording the identities of their customers and keep them updated at all points of time. Since they have failed to find the right formula, the conflicting demands has always been on the rise. Blockchain comes as a promise to solve this issue as it offers cryptographic protection and keeps all the parties involved in a transaction updated.